"Bless your heart, dearie, he'll never die! When the true one's
time comes, you'll see, if so be you be alive to see it, as Heaven
grant, he will go off like the flame of a candle and nothing be left
in his place but a bit of a withered sting nettle. But come, my
sweetings, 'tis time I got your supper. I'll put some nice rosy-
cheeked apples down to roast, to be soft for Mistress Woodford's
sore mouth."

Before the apples were roasted, Charles Archfield and his cousin,
the colleger Sedley Archfield, a big boy in a black cloth gown, came
in with news of having--together with the other boys, including
Oliver and Robert Oakshott--hunted Peregrine all round the Close,
but he ran like a lapwing, and when they had pinned him up in the
corner by Dr. Ken's house, he slipped through their fingers up the
ivy, and grinned at them over the wall like the imp he was. Noll
said it was always the way, he was no more to be caught than a bit
of